Literature Reviews

Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.

• On the Testability of WCAG 2.0 for Beginners

  Fernando Alonso, José Luis Fuertes, Ángel Lucas González, Loïc Martínez (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper investigates whether WCAG 2.0 success criteria are truly "reliably human testable" — one of the standard's key design goals — when the evaluators are beginners rather than experts. The W3C defines reliably human testable as meaning that at…

  • WCAG evaluation
  • accessibility education
  • testability
  • inter-rater reliability
  • manual testing
  • accessibility training

• A framework for filtering web accessibility guidelines

  Rehema Baguma, Roger G. Stone, Jude T. Lugega, Th. P. van der Weide (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents a framework for organizing and filtering web accessibility guidelines such as WCAG according to four contexts of use, addressing the widely acknowledged problem that WCAG guidelines are difficult for their target audience to navig…

  • accessibility guidelines
  • WCAG usability
  • context of use
  • guideline filtering
  • developer tools
  • accessibility education

• Development and Trial of an Educational Tool to Support the Accessibility Evaluation Process

  Christopher Bailey, Elaine Pearson (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper describes the design, development, and first trial of the Accessibility Evaluation Assistant (AEA), a web-based knowledge management tool created at Teesside University to support novice auditors in conducting accessibility evaluations. Th…

  • accessibility evaluation
  • accessibility education
  • WCAG compliance
  • evaluation tools
  • novice auditors
  • structured walkthrough
  • accessibility training

• Evaluation of the Effectiveness of a Tool to Support Novice Auditors

  Christopher Bailey, Elaine Pearson (2012) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper evaluates the Accessibility Evaluation Assistant (AEA), a web-based knowledge management tool designed to help novice auditors conduct accessibility evaluations, by comparing it against standard WCAG 2.0 conformance review. The AEA was dev…

  • accessibility evaluation
  • accessibility education
  • WCAG compliance
  • evaluation tools
  • accessibility training
  • novice auditors
  • structured walkthrough

• Empathic communication of accessibility barriers in web 2.0 editing

  Afra Pascual, Mireia Ribera, Toni Granollers (2015) — Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents EmpathicEditor4Accessibility (EE4A), a prototype web editor that helps non-technical content writers understand and fix accessibility errors by communicating barriers through the perspective of disabled personas rather than techni…

  • authoring tools
  • user-generated content
  • accessibility education
  • empathic design
  • WCAG compliance
  • content management systems
  • personas

• Measuring and comparing the reliability of the structured walkthrough evaluation method with novices and experts

  Christopher Bailey, Elaine Pearson, Voula Gkatzidou (2014) — Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates the reliability of the Structured Walkthrough evaluation method — a systematic approach to manual accessibility evaluation embedded in the Accessibility Evaluation Assistant (AEA) tool. The AEA contains 48 accessibility heuris…

  • accessibility testing
  • web accessibility evaluation
  • WCAG compliance
  • evaluator effect
  • accessibility education
  • heuristic evaluation

• CAN: Composable Accessibility Infrastructure via Data-Driven Crowdsourcing

  Yun Huang, Brian Dobreski, Bijay Bhaskar Deo, Jiahang Xin, Natã Miccael Barbosa, Yang Wang, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2015) — Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents CAN (Composable Accessibility Infrastructure), a crowdsourcing platform that collects web accessibility issues from real websites and their open-source fixes, dynamically composes solutions on-the-fly, and delivers the crowdsource…

  • crowdsourcing
  • web accessibility
  • accessibility education
  • automated testing
  • screen readers
  • accessibility remediation
  • developer tools
  • WCAG

• Exploring pedagogical culture for accessibility education in computing science

  Sarah Lewthwaite, David Sloan (2016) — Proceedings of the 13th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper examines the state of accessibility education in computing science through the lens of pedagogy—the theory and practice of teaching and learning. Lewthwaite and Sloan argue that while significant efforts are underway to embed accessibility…

  • accessibility education
  • pedagogy
  • computing science education
  • curriculum development
  • capacity building
  • teaching methods

• Teaching Accessibility to the Masses

  Greg Gay, Naza Djafarova, Leonora Zefi (2017) — Proceedings of the 14th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper documents the development and delivery of "Professional Web Accessibility Auditing Made Easy," a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) created by Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) and funded by the Government of Ont…

  • accessibility education
  • MOOC
  • web development
  • accessibility auditing
  • curriculum
  • training
  • pedagogical culture

• Evaluating Instructor Strategy and Student Learning Through Digital Accessibility Course Enhancements

  Claire Ferrari, Devorah Kletenik, Kate Sonka, Deborah Sturm, Amy Hurst (2019) — Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This paper evaluates the Teach Access Curriculum Development Awards program, an initiative by the Teach Access consortium (comprising 10 industry partners including Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, 5 advocacy groups, and 20 university partners) to in…

  • accessibility education
  • higher education
  • curriculum development
  • WCAG
  • universal design
  • inclusive design
  • workforce development